Ordo Salutis: Order of Salvation

Naw H. Sein

Universitas Pelita Harapan

TH 313: Christian Theology II

David K. Kim

28 January 2024
 Ordo Salutis: Order of Salvation

When I was growing up, every year, we had to fill in the information about yourself

and your family at school. In the category of ‘Religion’, people who were born in a Christian

family were expected to automatically write ‘Christian’ no matter what your relationship with

God was like. However, when I came to be in faith in Christ, I realized that to be a Christian,

we have to go through a process of salvation. However, this process or order of salvation may

differ from one person from another depending on their theological background. The most

renown Christian theologies are ‘Reformed’ theology and ‘Arminian’ theology. Nonetheless,

in this paper, the order of salvation will be explained based on ‘reformed theology’ and

compared and contrasted with my faith background.

Explanation of Ordo Salutis

The order of salvation derived from ‘Ordo Salutis’ which is in Latin. It is a logical

man-made sequence of salvation to help people see salvation as a scope. For Reformed

theology, they believe that people are totally depraved where they cannot choose God at all.

Therefore, they can only be saved if God saves them. However, the tricky part is, God does

not save everyone; God saves only some people which are called the ‘elect (Erickson, 2001).

From this point of view, the Ordo Salutis begins.

The first order of Ordo Salutis is ‘foreknowledge’. Foreknowledge means being aware

of what the future holds. However, according to Erickson (2001), foreknowledge is more than

a knowledge of a future; rather it is an intimate and personal relationship with a person. Thus,

it means that God knows the person before the foundation of the world. We can see the

evidence in Romans 8:29, “For those who, he foreknew he also predestined—“. As seen in

the verse, the outcome of foreknowledge is predestination. Evidently, if someone knows a

person from the beginning of the world, he/she would show favor upon the person.
 As mentioned before, another sequence of Ordo Salutis is ‘predestination’. According

to Richard (20234), predestination derives from foreknowledge according to God’s desire.

Predestination is a sequence where God decides whether He would ‘elect’ a person to be

saved from hell or not. This means some people are elected to be conformed to the likeness of

His Son; obviously resulting in ‘reprobation’—predestined for hell for some people

(Erickson, 2001). In the bible, it has been written that “For those whom he foreknew he also

predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn

among many brothers” (ESV, Ro 8:29). Moreover, “In love, he predestined us for adoption to

himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (ESV. Eph 1: 5). This shows, according to Calvinistic

view, that some people were clearly predestined to be saved because God knew and loved

them before the foundation of the world. And there is clearly nothing you can do about it.

Consequently, God calls those that he predestined. Thus, the gospel message is

prepared for those that he predestined to be saved. According to Erickson (2001), this

sequence of the ordo salutis is called ‘Special or effectual calling’ where the gospel calling is

for the elect and those that are elected respond positively towards the calling. The evidence

for this claim, again, is seen in Romans 8:30, “And those whom he predestined he also

called,” Due to the predestination, the elected are prone to respond positively, meaning,

accept the gospel call. If a person receives the calling (the gospel call), it means that they

were predestined. If they do not, it means that they were not predestined to be saved. In

addition to the outward call of the gospel, according to Richard (2024), there is also an

inward calling where you are drawn to the God or wants to know God by your own account.

Thus, when a person hear the gospel call outwardly, they, then, have an effectual call, where

they respond immediately to God’s salvation.

Regardless of God’s calling, humans are unable to respond to God’s calling unless

they are regenerated by God. Regeneration means rebirth or born again. In the explanation of
Richard (2024), regeneration helps us to see or hear God’s words with clearly understanding

for we were dead to sin beforehand. This process happens together with the process of

‘calling’.

After a person is ‘called’ to salvation, those that are elected, respond through faith.

The bible said that “for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own

doing; it is the gift of God” (ESV, Eph 2:8). This means that who believes in the Lord Jesus

will be saved (ESV, Acts 16:31). For, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other

name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (ESV, Acts 4:12); but for

Jesus. According to Richard (2024), the process of having faith that Jesus is our Lord and

savior requires our knowledge, assent, and trust. His claim reveals that our faith in God is not

a blind faith but comes with evidence.

When a person come into faith in Jesus Christ, repentance comes in play. Repentance

is different from regret. Whereby regret is a feeling of sadness and disappointed over

something that we did, repentance has to do with grief and remorse for the sins that we have

done (Richard, 2024). According to Richard (2024), saving faith is a repentant faith. It means

that if we are to have faith, we also repent of our sins. The biblical connection is seen in the

book of Mathhew, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (ESV, 3:8). If we do not repent,

having faith in Jesus would be meaningless since we would have no remorse on the sins Jesus

died for.

After a person has repented and put their faith in Jesus, though, they are unrighteous,

they would become righteous through the justification that Jesus provides. Humans are

sinners. Thus, when a person profess and claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior, Jesus justifies

a person with his atoning sacrificial work on the cross (ESV, Ro 4:16).

Another sequence of order salutis is ‘adoption’. When a person, through faith, is

justified by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the person is being adopted to the family of
God. In the book of Romans, it said, “for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back

into fear, but you have received the Sprit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!

Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if

children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,” (ESV, 8:14-17). Thus, those

that came to faith belongs to God as his children.

For God’s children, he has a plan; a plan to make believers more like Jesus. This

process is called sanctification, which refers to an ongoing work of God where humans have

to participate in the conformation or transformation of their lives to be more like Christ

(Richard, 2024). Believers are to go hand in hand with God in the process of sanctification

(Richard, 2024). God wills and enable believers to achieve in the process (Richard, 2024).

This process would last for a life time because even Paul struggled with sins even when he

was saved and thriving in the Kingdom of God. However, God is faithful to his elected; thus,

God will be helping believers in their lives to be more godly and Christ-like.

After believers have lived and died, they would receive glorification. In this step,

believers would be given a new body with the soul. According Richard (2024), believers

would have a body of like Christ which is perfect; untainted with sin. However, the time of

glorification would be when Jesus comes back again. Then, there would be no more pain or

sin.

Above all of the ordo salutis, the basic foundation lies in the union with Christ. Union

with Christ is what makes a believer Christian. According Richard (2024), when Christ died

for sin and we die to son, we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. This means that

we become one with Christ in life or in death, as Paul puts it.

Comparison and Contrast with home church

Frankly speaking, the place where I came to faith did not care about theological

aspects or doctrines. We called ourselves ‘Non-denominational’ because we do not like

sequence of ordo salutis, from ‘calling’ to ‘union with Christ’, they are accepted. When I was

in the community, I was introduced to the gospel but was never forced or persuaded. For my

spiritual leaders, they said that they just pray to God for us. They said what’s needed to be

said but the rest were in God’s hands.

Nevertheless, for the concept of foreknowledge and predestination, I can only guess

since we never talked about it. I can analyze that their beliefs were based on foreknowledge

as ‘foresight’ where God knows what humans were going to do, and predestine us by that.

The reason is that they believe that God is good and merciful, and that we are in the fight

between good and evil on this earth. They believe that God is saving sinners from the

clutches of sin and the devil of this fallen world. Therefore, God is calling sinners home with

the gospel. Whoever believes in Jesus would be saved (ESV, Jh 3:16) and Jesus himself calls

whoever are heavy laden to come to him (ESV, Matt 11:28-30). Thus, those who believes are

saved.

Consequently, they also believe that we are to be born again with the baptism of the

Holy Spirit (ESV, Lk 3:16). If we are not baptized by the Holy Spirit, we are not truly born

again or saved. Whether we are born again or not, we can see it from the fruits we bear as

Christians (ESV, Gal 5:22-23). Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the one at work for the salvation

of the person. Nonetheless, the person has to choose to accept salvation for we believe that

salvation is a choice that God has given to us. We have to freely come with our own choice.

Other parts are the same as the ordo salutis of Reformed. However, I believe that the

only and the most significant thing that differs from Reformed theology and my home church

would be how we view God. God for us is merciful, loving, and sovereign at the same time.

He calls sinners home and we are in this mission to spread God’s kingdom on this earth with
this relational covenant with God. What makes us want to follow Jesus is because of His

great and boundless love for us. For we cannot fight against sin if it was not for Jesus.

After all that has been said about ordo salutis, we may conclude that people try to

understand the mystery of God by logical sequence. Some have different perspectives on

ordo salutis, and others merely do not care. However, seeing the ordo salutis does help a

person to see if they are truly saved or not. If in their lives, they were never called by the

gospel, respond in faith, or being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing but

assume that they still need to go through the order of salvation. If we have gone through the

sequence of ordo salutis from one way or another, then we may know who we belong to.
 References

Erickson, M.J. (2001). Introducing Christian Doctrine, 2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker

Academic.

Richard, G. (2024). Ordo Salutis.

The Holy Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway Bibles, 2016.